Four Charged In Drug Fraud

Prescriptions Were Forged, Sheriff Says

The prescription for Oxycodone pills didn't seem right to a Hallandale Beach Pill Store pharmacist, and neither did the doctor who answered the phone number at the top.

Neither was real. The Broward Sheriff's Office said Tuesday the so-called doctor was part of a prescription drug ring responsible for pumping thousands of the highly addictive painkillers onto South Florida's streets.

Deputies arrested four suspected members of the ring, one thought to be a leader, at the pharmacy Monday, but officials believe about 70 people were involved, Broward Sheriff Ken Jenne said at a news conference Tuesday. So far, 10 people have been arrested in the scheme where legitimate doctors' names and Drug Enforcement Administration numbers were used to fill phony Oxycodone prescriptions, officials said.

"This organization has been pouring as many as 10,000 pills per month into South Florida," Jenne said.

Members of the ring take legitimate prescriptions and duplicate them, officials said. They use a fake phone number, so if a pharmacy calls for verification, another ring member answers, officials said.

The doctors typically were from the south Miami-Dade area, and Broward pharmacists weren't familiar with the physicians, Jenne said. "This is a no-kidding problem ... it's killing more people than heroin and cocaine combined," he said.

On Monday, detectives arrested Lashawn Hankerson, 36, of Opa-locka; Evelyn Saffold, 31, of Carol City; Taj Maron Collier, 31, of Miami Gardens, and James Willis, 48, of Miami. This is Collier's second arrest in connection with the scheme, and detectives believe he is a ringleader, Jenne said.

Hankerson tried to fill two prescriptions at the Pill Store on Monday, but the pharmacist became suspicious because the forms looked funny, Jenne said. The purple slips of paper were shorter than normal and were cut crudely, he said.

Hallandale Beach police arrested Hankerson. On the way to the police station, she told officers that the person driving behind them, Saffold, was part of the ring, officials said. Saffold was arrested.

Saffold told officers that two other ring members were in the area and gave them a description of the car, officials said. Later, Collier and Willis were arrested. Inside their car investigators found stacks of bogus purple prescription forms and several bags of marijuana.

Akilah Johnson can be reached at akjohnson@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4631.